Remember my post It’s A Runner Thing on Wednesday? Well, it got a little long and I didn’t get to post all of the crazy, strange, and funny things we runners are known to do, so I decided to finish it up today focusing on what we do at races!
How many times have you gotten up much earlier than you wanted to on a Saturday or Sunday just so you could go run in a race; AFTER you spent $125 for that privilege!
And then you drove to a specified location to meet your other crazy runner friends at zero dark thirty so you could carpool to the race…
Once you get to the race, you’re like, “Yeah man, I’m wide awake and I can do anything!”
My crazy runner friend Jarian ran in the Warrior Dash 5K in northern Georgia last year. I think this is the most “action packed” race photo I’ve ever seen. Why does he look like this, and I always seem to have both feet firmly planted on the ground in all of my race pictures?
I bumped into Amy at a local race expo recently, which was great because we hadn’t seen each other in FOREVER! In the picture below, she and her muddy friends from Mommy and Me Bootcamp had just finished a Warrior Dash in Mechanicsville, MD. Appropriately, they named their team the “Dirty Little Freaks!” Be sure to pop over to Amy’s blog Twingles Mom when you get a chance! You’ll be glad you did!
This next photo comes all of the way from down under! It was taken after The Color Run 5k in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Deb Runs reader Wendy (on the far right) and her friends seem to have enjoyed this colorful run!
A little bit closer to home, my friend Karan and her daughter Melani ran in a color run at National Harbor, just across the Potomac river from DC. This trendy run is definitely on my race bucket list!
Last year before our local Turkey Trot, Julie told her brother that she would buy him a turkey costume if he would wear it in the race, and he agreed! After the race, I posted group pictures on Facebook and my friends commented that they didn’t see me, but they had seen the turkey! He was quite the hit!
And of course how could I talk about crazy runner things without mentioning our very own music man, Mr. Incredible. If you’re new to Deb Runs, be sure to check out his story and how he became associated with the Rock ‘N’ Roll race series in my post That’s Mr. Incredible, To You!
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- Questions:
- What was your most unusual race?
- What’s the earliest you’ve had to get up to go to a race?
- What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen on a race course?
I wonder why I get up early and pay to run a race, too. LOL I am feeling really poor this month because my husband, son, and I have all race at LEAST once a weekend for the past 6-8 week. That adds up! But, I love every minute of it.
That’s a lot of races and a lot of entry fees adding up! It’s so awesome that your son runs with you and your husband! I love it!
The thought process behind races is crazy, isn’t it? Firm over some of your hard earned moo-lah for the ptiviledge to get up early, use public toilets, and then run. And at some point during that run it stops being fun until you cross the finish line.
Your Thanksgiving picture reminded me of something. A few years ago I ran the Virginia Run turkey trot 5K. There were two men dressed as pilgrims carrying oversized foam forks and knives. Their friend was dressed as a turkey and they chased him the whole race. It was hilarious!
I meant hand over, not firm over… stupid autocorrect
Oh my goodness… two pilgrims chasing a turkey for the entire race! That must have been hilarious!
Ha! I agree with Meagan absolutely. But I will say that there is no other feeling as good as sitting in the grass drinking and eating whatever is around and celebrating with people you just met and don’t really know but share a common experience with. Yes, indeed, we runners are crazy! But we love it. And that is all that counts.
Indeed! 🙂
My word. In Singapore, plenty of races start very early. I think our alarm went off at 3:30 earlier this year for a half marathon that flagged off at 5:30…
Honestly, I’m not sure what my most “unusual” race has been, but I worked on a team that produced a trail marathon in upstate NY – and when the trails are super muddy, the race is unlike anything else!
My alarm went off at 4:15 for the Wine Country Half, but I forgot to take a picture! I think the earliest I’ve ever gotten up for a race was 3:55…
We had to get up at 4:30 for the marathon in Phoenix. Then we had to sprint back to the hotel to shower and check out!
You said zero dark-thirty! That’s hilarious!
I once had a friend that always said, “Zero dark thirty,” so I can’t take credit for coming up with it! 😉
The things we do for our kids and the things we do for running! i’ve loved this series of posts!
HaHa! Yes, this week as I plan the 45-mile ultra training run logistics, I’ll be saying plenty of times, “The things we do for our kids!” 🙂
Love the pics! No unusual runs here, just boring normal ones 🙂 The earliest I have gotten up for a race was about 3:30 in the morning, to drive over an hour to the race, to run 13.1 miles and pay someone $120 to do it. Go figure! Call us all crazy because we keep doing it over and over again!
We’ll be getting up around 3:30 on Sunday morning for our ultra training event that we’re doing. (Yawn)
Oh boy, every Sunday. Yikes!
No, fortunately just this coming Sunday!
I’ve done two mud/obstacle races. They were both really fun, but I don’t know if I would ever pay that much money to do them again. So expensive for such a short race!
Some of the bigger named races are getting a lot more expensive these days…